Fundraising Copywriter George Crankovic

Tag: Fundraising copywriting

  • 5 emotional triggers for fundraising

    How do you create a strong connection with your donors? One way is to use emotional triggers in appeals. Let’s take a look at some, discussed in my guest post, that you’ll want to know about:

    1. Altruism. Altruism is concern for others, and it’s pretty much hard-wired into humans. One way to tap into it is with a compelling story about a beneficiary who’s suffering – a story that tugs on the heartstrings to elicit concern and sympathy. Other ways include adding photos that show need, reminding donors of past giving (acts of altruism), and coming out and saying, “You’re a good person. The fact that you’re reading this letter tells me you care about people who are hurting.”
    2. Outrage. Donors are inclined to take action when there’s a wrong that needs to be righted. Like altruism, it’s hard-wired. It goes to the very core of our sense of fair play, and when that’s violated, donors get riled up. “Look at what fracking does. It fouls the air we breathe. It pollutes the water we drink. It speeds up climate change. It’s destroying our planet. I’m not going to stand for it. Are you?”
    3. Guilt. This emotional trigger is one of the most powerful. Everyone has experienced it, and it’s part of almost any cause. When you contrast the donor’s relatively comfortable life with that of someone who’s homeless, say, or living in abject poverty in a developing country, the result is likely to invoke a feeling of guilt. “As I watched little Amina lying in that bed in the clinic, barely breathing, beyond hope, drifting away, I kept asking myself, ‘Why do we have so much when this innocent child in Ghana is starving to death?’”
    4. Fear. Judging from its use in commercial marketing, fear may be the single most powerful motivator. Don’t avoid it in fundraising. Use it to get donors involved. “When drug addiction increases, so does the crime that goes with it. What will happen in our neighborhoods? What will we do when burglaries and muggings skyrocket? How will we keep our homes secure? How will we protect our children?” To stir a powerful reaction from donors is to use fear as a motivator.
    5. Exclusivity. You want the donor reading your appeal to think she’s the most important person in the world in that moment. “Your generosity really sets you apart as a truly committed and beloved supporter. You’re at the heart of this work to end homelessness.” Exclusivity as a motivator is also a natural for sustainer appeals that invite donors to become monthly supporters. “You’re invited to join this select group of supporters who believe in putting a stop to child abuse.” Exclusivity is also an effective motivator in appeals to higher-dollar donors. “The extraordinary generosity you’ve demonstrated puts you way out front as a leading advocate in the pro-life movement.”

    You can use these in all kinds of ways in appeals, and it’s good to use as many as possible. They create a stronger connection between your donor and your cause – a connection that’s going to bring your donors closer to your nonprofit and motivate them to give.

  • How to raise more funds with storytelling

    There’s a lot of talk about storytelling in fundraising, and it’s easy to get the idea that all you have to do is throw in a story about a beneficiary to create an appeal that does gangbusters.

    It’s not that simple, of course. The storytelling in an appeal is of a specific type with certain requirements and restrictions. On the other hand, storytelling for a newsletter tends to follow what we would usually think of as a typical narrative, with a beginning, a middle, and an end.

    And that’s where this post about improving your storytelling with playwriting techniques can come in handy.

    The first thing to consider is the basic structure of a plot.

    • The beginning, where we meet the characters and hopefully being to feel a connection with them.
    • The middle, where a problem or challenge is encountered.
    • The end, where the problem or challenge is overcome, and the protagonist is changed in some way. And the donor is given the credit.

    The next thing to consider is how to flesh out the characters in the story:

    • What does each character want?
      What are the conflicts involved?
    • What are the obstacles?
    • What are the consequences to a particular character’s actions?

    Naturally, for a newsletter story it’s not necessary to answer all of these questions, but they do provide a starting point for thinking about the characters who make up your story and how to add more depth to them in order to bring them to life for readers.

    One more thing to consider is the quotations you use in your story. You can think of the quotations as a character speaking directly with the reader in a sort-of dialogue. So it’s better when the quotations reveal something about the character and his or her motivations, rather than just reinforcing the previous point in the story. This too can add more depth to the story.

    These are some of the basics, but there’s lots more to good storytelling. Still, storytelling isn’t a panacea for ineffective fundraising, but it is a powerful part of connecting with donors on an emotional level. Let your donors feel what the beneficiaries of your nonprofit feel. Let your donors relate to their lives, instead of thinking of them as somehow separate. Let your donors into their world. That’s what will engage your donors, and a heartfelt story is one of the best ways to do it.

     

  • Positioning for your nonprofit

    Donors want to know that they’re making a difference with their gifts. That’s always been the case, and it’s even more true now with the current recession going on.

    So that’s why it’s important to take a look at your donor communications with a healthy dose of skepticism, as Pamela Barden suggests in her blog post.

    Here are the four questions she recommends that fundraisers should ask themselves as a kind of self-test, a check to see if we’re on the right track:

    • So what? You should be clear about why your organization exists, the impact it’s having, and the outcomes it’s producing. By asking So what? you keep the focus on what matters to your donor.
    • Who’s doing it better? You need to know what other similar nonprofits are doing and what they’re saying about what they do. It’s important to know how your organization is different.
    • What’s our unique selling proposition? You’ve probably heard this marketing term before, but it still applies. It’s all about conveying a specific benefit to your donor that she can’t get anywhere else.
    • What’s the best story to show this specialness? This is where you connect emotionally with donors and do it in a way that shows how what your organization does matters – and deserves your donor’s support.

    Great questions, all. But really, when you think about it, these questions are aiming at basically one thing – positioning. The positioning of your nonprofit. And that basically comes down to the one thing or couple of things that make your nonprofit different from the others.

    So, it’ll be helpful to think about the answers to these four questions, and use them to come up with a positioning statement for your nonprofit.

    A positioning statement, not a mission statement. They’re vastly different. A mission statement is more aspirational, more pie-in-the-sky. Mission statements for most nonprofits are generally pretty vague and not all that useful for fundraising.

    A positioning statement, on the other hand, is useful for fundraising, because it captures what your organization does and what it does that’s different.

    There’s a lot of information out there on positioning statements, and there are lots of templates to use in creating one.  A basic template, though, for a positioning statement is this:  For <target audience>, <organization> is a <type of nonprofit> that <differentiator>.

    Let’s look at an example. Say the nonprofit is a homeless shelter that’s open all day, every day and allows people who are homeless to stay as long as they need to in order to get their lives back on track, achieving the goal of permanent housing.

    So for this nonprofit, we might have a positioning statement like:

    For donors who want to help people who are homeless, Hope Shelter is the social services nonprofit that provides the short-term or long-term stability a homeless person needs to overcome their challenges, secure permanent housing, and return to society.

    This is one out of many possibilities, of course. There isn’t necessarily one right answer when it comes to a positioning statement, and it may change over time as your nonprofit changes. But like any positioning statement, it can be a helpful measure to see whether your fundraising communications are on-strategy.

    But there’s an even simpler way. There have been tons of books, articles, webinars, and more on the topic of positioning and branding. The more you read about it, the more dizzyingly complex it becomes. But there’s a far simpler – and many would say – better way to approach it.

    The branding and positioning for most of the world’s biggest brands can often be reduced to one adjective or at least one word.

    Volvos are safe. Porsches are fast. Apple computers are intuitive. Nike is aspirational. You get the idea. One word that signals a difference, a direction. Sure, it’s simple, but in marketing and fundraising, simple is powerful. And it’s easy to keep in mind when you’re creating appeals.

    So what’s the word for your nonprofit? In the example for the shelter above, the word might be “stability.”

    Stability in the sense that the shelter is an oasis in the chaos and uncertainty of living out on the street … that the shelter is always open, 24/7, to help someone who’s homeless … that someone who’s homeless can stay as long as needed to turn their life around … that the ultimate goal is for the person to find permanent housing … that addressing homelessness creates a stronger, better community for everyone, including the donor, and so on.

    Once you have a clear positioning for your nonprofit, you can check your donor communications against it, and that means, instead of seat-of-the-pants, you’re operating from a strategy – a much better way to go.

     

     

     

  • Coronavirus fundraising – there’s a better way

    Judging from what’s showing up in mailboxes and email inboxes, it looks like a lot of nonprofits are struggling with the messaging around the coronavirus crisis. But honestly, they’re making it much harder than it has to be.

    Take this example from a prominent aid and relief charity. The first paragraph begins with the new president and CEO introducing himself and then acknowledging that he’s stepping into his new role at a challenging time. “We’re all facing the coronavirus pandemic,” he writes. Uh…no kidding.

    So, apparently, this is a new-CEO letter, plus a coronavirus fundraising appeal. Generally, it’s not a great idea to try and do two things with one letter. It’s best when the letter has one purpose and one point.

    The next paragraph talks about how COVID-19 threatens everyone, especially the elderly and people with health conditions. There’s no need to waste time saying this. People have gotten this information thousands of times by now.

    In the third paragraph, the letter writer explains that he’s often asked if it’s difficult to be a CEO at this challenging time, and then assures us that the organization adapts to challenging times because of their strong teams. This comes off as way too self-serving, but beside that, it’s not good fundraising, because it’s about the organization not the donor.

    The next paragraph congratulates the front line health workers for their commitment and the organization’s supporters for their commitment. This is an okay sentiment, of course, but it shouldn’t be here, four paragraphs in, before we’ve even come to an ask.

    Paragraph five explains that all hands are needed on deck in this crisis, and asks, “Can you help us?”  Not “Can you help shut down the coronavirus?” But “Can you help US?” This is organization centric, not donor centric.

    It’s not until the sixth paragraph that we get to the real point of the letter: a donation to provide personal protective equipment for health workers. Before we get to that, though, the letter explains that the organization has already shipped tons of PPE for health workers.

    Hang on a minute – so the organization has already shipped tons of PPE and now they’re asking for a donation to ship PPE? That’s a strange way to present an ask. Why would you tell a donor, right before the ask, that you’ve already done the very same thing you’re asking the donor to do? Sort of takes the edge off of the urgency, doesn’t it?

    There’s a far better way to structure this appeal, and it starts with the opening. Begin with the real and urgent need for PPE. This is something, given the wall-to-wall news coverage, that every donor will immediately get. Then show the donor how her gift fulfills that need, ideally with a specific and compelling offer. Something like: “Your gift of $XX sends XX pairs of gloves. Your gift of $XX sends XX masks.” And so on.

    It’s one of the basic best practices of disaster fundraising. In many disasters, the news coverage provides the background, which means that donors mainly need to know how they can help and what their help will do. If it takes five or six paragraphs of blab to get to this point, most donors will be long gone.

    There’s a basic framework for structuring disaster-fundraising appeals, and it doesn’t include talk about the commitment of your staff, your organization’s history, your organization’s flexibility, generalities about how much of a threat coronavirus is, and similar things. They’re just not relevant. They take the donor’s eye off the ball.

    What disaster fundraising does require is a compelling expression of the need, a clear case for the urgency of the donor’s gift, and a strong offer that details what the donor’s gift will do. All focused around one core idea. Because when the appeal has one purpose and one point, there’s a far greater chance that it’s going to break through, connect with donors, and raise more money.